The Water and the Fire
by burnmedown
Summary: When the earthquake hits, Clay has a migraine.
1. Chapter 1

When the earthquake hits, Clay has a migraine.

He isn't especially prone to them, has had a grand total of maybe six or seven in his entire life, and they're always triggered by something pretty extreme. He ended up with one a couple days after the helicopter crash. Figures he probably also would have had one after the IED in Manila if he hadn't been too busy almost bleeding out, and having major surgery, and being so drugged up that he ended up losing all memory of two weeks of his life.

Today's migraine was triggered about 36 hours ago when he got his head smashed into a wall by a tango he was trying to subdue. The impact rang his bell pretty good. Trent checked him afterward and said he didn't have a concussion, so Clay hoped for the best, but deep down he knew it was probably coming. Sure enough, a few hours later the aura arrived: tinnitus; distorted vision; vague nausea that made him dislike the idea of food in general; a weird sense of disconnection, as though he were trying to pilot his body from a remote location.

Having seen it before in Afghanistan, his team recognized the signs even before Clay was willing to admit to them, and he got shoved into a dark room with a giant bottle of ibuprofen, a bowl to puke into, and strict instructions to stay put until the migraine was gone.

By the time the earthquake starts, the migraine isn't _gone_ exactly but is definitely going, receding from ice-pick agony to a sort of dull throb in his temple. Clay feels well enough to emerge from the dark, squinting a little, and join Blackburn in the ops room to try to alleviate some of the boredom.

Bravo is just doing surveillance today, so it's not like that would be thrilling either, but at least he'd be out with his boys. Clay gets antsy and unsettled when they're in the field and he isn't with them. You'd think he would have gotten used to it during those months he spent rehabbing after getting his leg blown up, but if anything, that just made it worse. He's already lost so much time, and he doesn't want to miss any more opportunities to be there when his team needs him.

At the moment, not much is going on. There are just a couple of support personnel present. Blackburn is sitting at a desk, staring intently at a laptop screen. Clay is across the room, perched on a table with his feet propped up on the back of a chair while he reads a book. When claiming the perch, Clay half expected Blackburn to tell him to get down and sit like a normal human, but the man just looked at him, raised his eyebrows slightly, and then went back to whatever he was doing.

There's no real local military base available for them to run operations out of, so they've set up shop in a somewhat run-down stone building. The quarters are cramped, particularly for sleeping, and the lack of available running water means the place is starting to smell strongly of unwashed SEALs. The hope is that they won't have to stay longer than a couple more days at most.

When a deafening bang shakes through the building, Clay's first instinct screams _bomb._ He's off the table and on his feet before he even has a chance to think.

But then the shuddering intensifies, the floor pitches, throwing him back against the wall, and the bang gives way to a cacophony of clattering. Blackburn is yelling something, but Clay can't hear him. Feeling like he's surfing on land, he struggles to get back up.

Before Clay can find his feet and make it across the room to try to shield Blackburn or get him somewhere safer, a sharp cracking noise heralds the collapse of half the ceiling.

The wall at Clay's back holds up, and the chunks of broken stone miss him almost entirely. He throws up his arms to shield his head, ends up with a few new cuts and bruises. Chokes on dust as he fights to find footing in the rubble. The damned shaking just won't stop.

Then, all at once, it does.

In the aftermath of the noise, the quiet peals like thunder, interrupted only by distant screams and the faint shatter of glass still falling from high windows in nearby buildings.

Ears ringing, Clay drags himself up. The room's silence sets anxiety clawing at his chest. "Blackburn?"

Nothing.

"Eric?" He coughs, lifts the collar of his T-shirt over his mouth, trying to get some oxygen without breathing in too much plaster dust. "Anybody?"

Clay finds the support guys first. They were in the middle of the room and took the brunt of the collapse, crushed beneath slabs of stone. There's nothing he can do for them.

"Sorry," he tells them quietly, and moves on.

Blackburn was toward the back wall. Surely there's a chance. There's got to be a chance.

"Eric?" Clay calls again. This time, a faint groan responds.

The good news is that, like Clay, Blackburn escaped the bulk of the falling stone. He wasn't crushed and isn't buried. There's one chunk of ceiling resting over his left ankle and foot, but it's small enough that Clay is able to roll it aside and free him.

The bad news is that Eric has a rebar through his right shoulder, just below the clavicle.

Contrary to what a lot of TV shows and movies would have you think, shoulders are absolutely full of really important things: arteries, bones, tendons, major nerves and muscles. Getting impaled through the shoulder is a _big fucking problem._ The goddamn rebar is probably the only thing preventing Blackburn from hemorrhaging.

Confused and semiconscious, Eric blinks up at Clay. He's covered in white dust that frosts his beard, his eyelashes. His lips move, but he doesn't seem able to find his voice.

"Hey, hey." Clay settles at his side, gripping his hand. "It's okay. You're okay. I've got you."

Seeing Blackburn like this is gut-wrenching, bringing back the nausea Clay just finished getting over. It's wrong. This isn't the man's role. He isn't supposed to be the one taking harm.

Blackburn coughs, which must jar his shoulder, because the cough turns into a groan. He takes a few shallow, unsteady breaths before managing to ask, "The others?"

Clay shakes his head. "They're gone. I'm sorry."

Eric closes his eyes briefly. "You?"

"I'm good. Barely a scratch."

Blackburn nods a little, tries to lick his lips, winces at the taste of dust. "How bad?"

Keeping his tone calm and reassuring, Clay goes with honesty, because he suspects that even a badly injured Blackburn will see right through him if he tries to lie. "You got a piece of metal through your shoulder here, so try not to move any. I'm gonna figure a way to get you out of here."

Truth be told, he has no idea how to accomplish that. Comms are dead and his phone unsurprisingly doesn't have a signal, so they're on their own right now and have no way to get the equipment that's needed.

Clay isn't an expert on earthquakes, but he knows enough to feel confident that this one was big or shallow or possibly both, and there will be aftershocks. With the building's structural integrity already as badly compromised as it is, a strong aftershock could bring the whole thing down on their heads, in which case they will probably both die.

On the other hand, if Clay tries to remove the rebar from Blackburn's shoulder, odds are the man will bleed out in minutes.

He needs a rescue team. A way to cut through this goddamn metal and move Eric without killing him.

The rest of Bravo is hopefully okay. They were in one of the neighborhoods nearer the bay, doing surveillance from a lightweight wooden shack that should have been easy enough to escape once the tremors started. Clay just has no way to contact them and let them know that he could use their help, right damn now.

As another cough rips through his chest, Clay suddenly realizes that the noxious air quality isn't only due to lingering plaster dust. There's acrid smoke starting to billow in from somewhere, because why _wouldn't_ the building be on fire?

On the bright side, the structure being largely made of stone means it won't be able to fully burn down around them. That will be of great comfort as they slowly die of smoke inhalation while everything combustible goes up in flames.

_Work the problem,_ Jason's voice says in Clay's head. He sits back on his heels, looking around the room, trying to catalog the resources he has to work with and figure out how he can use them to get to the desired outcome. Keeps coming up empty.

A new sound breaks the quiet: an eerie, strident wail, starting first at a single distant point, then escalating into a chorus as more and more sirens go off across the city.

Heart pounding, Clay glances down at Blackburn. "Is that..."

Eric blinks slowly, looking tired and pale and resigned. "Tsunami warning," he says, his voice quiet and hoarse. "We're out of time."


	2. Chapter 2

Everyone makes it out of the shack before it collapses, but not by much.

Sonny is the last one out the door before the whole structure craters. He staggers, falling hard to a knee as the ground tosses and rolls beneath his feet. Jason grabs his elbow, pulling him farther away from the structure, and then they both just sit down on their asses to wait it out.

When the shaking finally stops and the chorus of collapse is over, Jason looks around at his team. Everyone is okay and accounted for - except, of course, the one they left behind today, who's back with Blackburn and the support guys. The thought of that makes Jason feel antsy and unsettled. The time they almost lost Clay is maybe still a little too fresh in his mind. In all their minds, judging by the way the others are looking at him.

Comms are dead. None of their phones have signals. Quake this big is bound to have taken down some infrastructure, and he doubts it's done yet. There will be aftershocks. Maybe big ones. They can only hope this wasn't a foreshock, because if it was, the whole city is probably screwed. Well, even _more_ screwed.

After cautiously climbing to his feet like he's expecting the ground to turn back into a wave pool at any minute, Sonny asks worriedly, "Boss, you reckon the building held up?"

Jason doesn't have to ask what building Bravo Three is referring to. They all already know.

He just shakes his head, refusing to speculate, and instead takes in the damage around them. The neighborhood they're in is devoid of tall buildings, mostly made up of shacks and shanties, but there's a lot of splintered wood. The roads, which were formerly more or less paved, are now buckled and cracked and already starting to fill up with people streaming out from damaged houses, carrying or supporting their injured.

Even if Bravo did head back to Blackburn and Spenser right this minute, God only knows how long it would take them to get there with the shape the streets are in. Further in toward the city center, where there are more large stone or concrete buildings, the roads might be in even worse shape.

And there are a lot of people right here who could use their help.

"What's the call, boss?" Ray asks quietly, looking around at the bloody faces, crying children.

Jason blows out a breath. "Let's do what we can for the injured." He looks at Trent. "Tell us what to do."

With a sharp nod, Trent heads out into the street, toward the largest concentration of casualties, and starts triaging. There are a lot of bleeding head wounds, a few broken bones. Overall, it's likely not as bad here as it is in the part of the city where Clay and Blackburn are. Jason just hopes that they came out of the quake healthy and mobile enough to be able to render aid rather than requiring it.

Sonny's expression remains unsettled, and several times he glances over at Jason and opens his mouth like he's going to say something, but he always thinks better of it and just goes back to following Trent's instructions.

The medic has just finished splinting a little girl's broken leg when the tsunami sirens start going off.

"Shit," Sonny says blankly, looking toward the bay. "Oh, shit."

"Jace, what do we do?" Brock asks, quiet and urgent and scared.

The section of the city they're in isn't that far from the shoreline. How long do they have? Fifteen minutes? Less? And where the hell is the closest intact building that's tall enough to let them escape a damn tsunami? Jason automatically reaches for his radio to ask HAVOC, only to remember that comms are down and there might not even _be_ a HAVOC to contact at the moment anyway.

He pushes that thought away, tries to focus. Tries to remember the city's layout well enough to figure out the best direction to run. Comes up empty.

Around them, there's a general stampede as people start to realize what's happening, as it sinks in that treating the wounded has to take a back seat to getting them the hell to safety. Listening to the chatter, Jason wishes that he spoke the local language, but no one on Bravo does - not even Clay beyond a few basic phrases, meaning he wouldn't be able to help much even if he were here.

As they watch, the crowd seems to pick a direction, heading generally eastward into the edge of the city. Jason looks at Ray, and with a mutual shrug and nod, they follow. Jason figures the locals will know their own city better than outsiders do. If they think there's safety this way, then hopefully they're right.

They'd better be. His team's lives probably depend on it.

As it turns out, there's just over 20 minutes between the quake and the arrival of the tsunami. It's not as long as they need.

The crush of the panicked crowd chokes the street too much to move quickly, so Jason pulls his team off to a side street, on the fly calculating an alternate route that should allow them to move much faster while sticking with the same general direction. They run down narrow roads, dodge abandoned motorcycles and the occasional truck, leap over wide cracks and around tumbled rubble from collapsed buildings. There are cries and plumes of smoke wafting out of the ruins around them, and it hurts like hell that they can't stop and try to help.

This is the awful cruelty of the quake being followed so closely by the tsunami: anyone trapped low to the ground is dead. That's all there is to it. Even if they're not injured, they're about to drown.

The taller buildings start to come into view just as a chorus of screams lets them know that the people up higher have seen the wave coming. Anyone still on the ground is damn near out of time.

It's Trent who spots the fire escape, points toward it with a yell. It's rusted and appears to be precariously clinging to the side of a solid, largely intact two-story concrete building. Under normal circumstances, Jason would probably never consider trying to scale something so rickety. Right now, there's little choice.

Trent goes up first. Brock follows, then Jason, then Sonny and Ray.

The first three make it up just fine. Jason's feet are just hitting the roof when he feels rather than sees the wave hit.

He turns to look down just as the fire escape starts to shear away from the side of the building.

Metal shrieks, audible over the rising rush of seawater pouring into and around the bottom floor of the structure. Sonny, face pale and frantic, flings himself up the final few rungs, reaching out for Jason's hand. As the metal structure falls away toward the water, Sonny jumps.

Jason almost misses him, lunging forward just in time to get a grip on his teammate's forearm. Sonny swings hard against the wall, letting out a startled shout of pain. Gritting his teeth against the burn in his shoulder, Jason tries to lift. Just as his grip starts to waver, Brock joins him, leaning down to grab at Sonny's other arm.

The building trembles, the force of the water intensifies, and the bottom of the fire escape finishes pulling away from the wall with a final wail of rusted metal.

Jason glances down past Sonny just in time to see Ray, looking up at them with a hauntingly calm expression, fall off the crumbling metal structure and disappear into the churning muddy water below.


	3. Chapter 3

The tsunami sirens immediately resolve Clay's quandary about whether to try to move Blackburn. There's no choice now. Judging by the resigned expression on the commander's face, he's figured that out too.

"I'm sorry," Clay tells him. "This is gonna hurt like hell."

"I know," Blackburn says, his voice quiet and hoarse. He closes his eyes.

Clay wishes Trent were here, but there's nobody else. Just him.

Blackburn fell backward onto the rebar, meaning there's only about an inch of it protruding from his shoulder, and he's not pinned down. Clay just has to pull him straight up and off the metal while trying to cause as little additional damage as possible.

Clay's head throbs. He coughs against the growing smoke, lifting his shirt back up over his mouth. Tries to calculate how much force it's going to take to get Blackburn free, because he knows he's not gonna want to have to try this twice.

It's ugly and gut-wrenching, but Clay gets it done. Blackburn screams through gritted teeth; then his head lolls back and he goes mercifully limp.

The spurt of blood isn't as bad as Clay feared it would be, which hopefully means there's no arterial damage. Even so, the wound bleeds enough that Clay takes the time to hurriedly pack it front and back, the continual background wail of the sirens lending extra urgency to his movements.

Once he's done the best he can to control the bleeding, Clay carefully lifts the unconscious commander onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry, trying not to jar him too much, and starts looking for a way out.

He climbs over and around rubble, mumbling reflexive apologies to Blackburn (who definitely can't hear him) every time he trips or stumbles. The smoke intensifies. Clay's lungs and throat burn. His head starts to spin from lack of oxygen, rendering his knees weak and shaky.

There it is: the front doorway, and the open space beyond it that hopefully spells survival.

And just inches off to the side of their only path to escape is the goddamn fire, consuming furniture and drapes and everything else that will burn.

Clay stares at it for a minute. His vision has started to blur, lending a hazy halo to the flames. All across the city, the sirens go on screaming.

Burn, or drown.

Hell, why not both? He's always been an overachiever.

If he keeps Eric mostly shifted to his left shoulder and stays as close as he can to the wall on that side, Clay thinks he might be able to protect him from the worst of the heat. Maybe. As for himself, he's pretty sure he'll get singed, though he is at least wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt thanks to the migraine. Those always fuck with his internal thermostat, making him feel cold from the inside out even if the environment is warm. Never thought he'd be grateful for it.

Staying means dying, so Clay inhales, chokes on thick smoke that further darkens his vision, and forces himself to go.

The closer he gets, the more unbearable the heat becomes. It requires every ounce of his willpower to force himself onward, twisting away both to shield his own face and to keep Blackburn as far from the flames as possible.

They make it out of the building alive. The only minor problem is the fact that Clay is maybe a little bit on fire.

With his right sleeve going up in flames, it takes a truly impressive amount of focus to not just let go of Blackburn. Clay is well aware that a fall from that height would probably kill Eric right now, so he stumbles to his knees, bends down, manages to gently roll the man off his shoulders, and _then_ puts the fire out.

Judging by the searing pain, the sensation that his arm is still burning even with the flames gone, that took a little too long.

There's no time to think about it. The unending wail of the sirens makes that very clear.

Clay staggers to his feet, holding his charred arm at an awkward angle against his chest. Deliberately avoids looking down at it to see how bad the damage is. He stumbles over to Blackburn and pats his face and says, "Eric. Come on, man. Need you to help me out here."

Between the smoke inhalation, the lingering effects of the migraine and the nauseating agony of the burns, Clay isn't sure he's currently capable of carrying Blackburn to safety. He'll give it his absolute best shot if he has to, but it would be a lot easier if the man could support at least some of his own weight.

A few more pats and Blackburn comes around, weak and groggy and confused. Clay gets him up, helps him stumble out toward the road, looking both directions in search of the closest refuge.

The developing world is such a mix. In some places you'll have buildings as sturdy and sound as anything you'd see in the States, but they might be surrounded by shantytowns, or at least by older structures that were put up before building codes were really a thing here and have just sort of been grandfathered in.

The earthquake has provided a really quick, easy way to determine which buildings belong to which category.

There's a parking garage down the street that appears to be only minimally damaged, meaning it likely fits into the 'built to code' category. Good a place as any to try to get out of wave range.

Their pace down the street couldn't exactly be called a run, but they get where they need to go. Down and across the street. Up a flight of stairs. Up another, with Clay taking on more and more of Blackburn's weight.

Gasping air into lungs that can't seem to process the oxygen fast enough, Clay seriously considers stopping on the second floor, but figures he'd better not chance it. He's got no way of knowing how big the wave is going to be. It would suck to go to all this trouble only to drown a floor away from safety.

Up one last flight, more or less carrying Eric most of the way. By the time they reach the top, black spots are dancing across Clay's vision. He staggers, his knees starting to give way, and faintly hears voices calling in an unfamiliar language, feels gentle hands holding him up and guiding him and Blackburn into a sitting position against the wall.

When his head clears enough to see again, he's surrounded by faces, some of them bloody, all with hollow, haunted eyes. A woman with a medical bag at her side has laid Blackburn down flat and is leaning over him, fingers pressed against his carotid. She looks over at Clay, asks in clear but accented English, "He is bleeding?"

"Yeah." Clay points her to the location of the injury. "Are you a doctor?"

"Yes," she says, then hisses softly at the sight of Blackburn's haphazardly packed wound, the blood still seeping from it.

Clay shifts, angling his body away from her and pressing his burned arm close against his side to hide it from her view. He doesn't want her getting distracted from the patient she needs to be treating right now.

The acid pain claws at his focus, sets him bouncing his knee, unable to keep still. He tells himself it's not a big deal. Burns always hurt like hell. Doesn't mean they're actually serious.

The small group of people standing at the far wall, looking out toward the ocean, all start shouting and pointing.

Here it comes.

Clay pushes himself up, staggers over to join them, draws a sharp breath at the sight of the swell rising up across the bay, bearing down on them.

The part of his brain that's stubbornly clinging to logic tells him that, as tsunamis go, it's probably not even that big. Nothing like '04. Not even remotely close.

The rest of his brain is busy saying, _Holy shit. Holy SHIT._

Bravo, they were pretty near the shore. They have to have made it out. He won't let himself consider any other possibility.

The people beside him start gasping and yelling anew, leaning over to look directly below.

Two young women in jeans and brightly colored hijabs are running across the cracked pavement toward the garage, clinging to each other, stumbling over rubble.

Clay looks at the girls, at the tsunami's approach, back down to the girls again. He glances over at Blackburn, who seems to be in good hands.

God _dammit._

He heads for the stairs.


	4. Chapter 4

After Jason and Brock pull Sonny up onto the roof, the Texan bends over, swearing under his breath, bracing his arm against his chest. Based on the awkward angle of the shoulder, Jason guesses it's likely dislocated.

Sonny didn't have the view the others did, so he doesn't realize what has happened until he straightens up, face scrunched in pain, and registers who isn't there.

"Where's Ray?"

When no one answers, Sonny turns sharply to Jason, staggering a little. "Jace," he asks tightly, "where the hell is Ray?"

Jason tries to swallow past the lump that seems to be trying to block off his whole damn throat. "He's … he fell off the fire escape. We lost him."

Sonny shakes his head. "No."

"Sonny-"

The Texan points at his team leader with his good hand. "_No,"_ he proclaims, and goes to the edge of the roof to look down at the churning water.

He won't see anything. Nothing except ripples and foam and debris.

They almost lost Ray not so long ago, and this feels like the worst kind of deja vu, because this time there's absolutely nothing they can do. No way they can make the ending turn out any different. At least last time they could fight for him. Like he always fights for them.

Quinn wavers in place, looking so devastated and disoriented that Jason moves forward to grab his good arm, make sure he won't fall.

Sonny and Ray aren't necessarily the closest friends on the team in the sense of spending time together and discussing every aspect of their lives; Ray is generally closer to Jason, and Sonny to Clay. That said, Sonny is utterly, unwaveringly loyal to Bravo Two and has never made any secret of the fact that he believes Ray is the glue that holds the team together. Jason knows the Texan trusts his team leader and would follow him anywhere, but sometimes he thinks Sonny just might trust Ray even more.

Maybe it's because of that trust and loyalty or just because he's injured, but whatever the cause, Sonny is taking it harder than anyone else. While the others stand around, looking at each other in pale, shellshocked silence, Sonny's disbelief escalates to near panic. Shaking off Jason's hand, he turns. "Boss, we've got to do something. We have to-"

"What?" There's a searing pain in Jason's chest that doesn't come from any injury, and it makes his words come out sharper and shorter than they should. "What are we gonna do, Sonny? You want to try to swim that? Got some diving gear you mean to use? How do you plan to keep from getting pulled out to sea when it recedes?"

Trent squeezes Jason's shoulder in a gentle, silent reprimand, a rescue line to pull him back to himself. It's the kind of thing Ray does. Did.

Jason closes his burning eyes. He breathes in, out. He says, "Believe me that I want to save Ray just as much as you do, but there is nothing we can do for him right now. Not until that water goes down."

By which time Ray Perry, Jason's 2IC, his friend, one of the best human beings he knows, will likely have washed away into the ocean like just one more piece of debris. They'll probably never even find his body to bring home to Naima.

Sonny's chin wobbles. He wanders away from the edge of the roof and sits down. Trent goes to him to check his scraped-raw palms, evaluate his bad shoulder.

As suspected, the shoulder is dislocated. Jason moves forward with intent to help, but Trent gives him a slight head shake. He hangs back, letting Brock take over instead, watching while trying not to get swallowed by the flood inside his own head. He's lost Ray, and taken that loss out on Sonny, and now he doesn't have a goddamn idea what to do.

There's a lot of noise going on, which is probably why it takes so long for them to hear the voice.

Some of the warning sirens are still going off, even though the wave has already arrived. The water itself is pretty damn loud, roaring and foaming around the bottom floor of the building. Sonny is groaning as Trent finishes immobilizing his newly relocated arm.

Faintly, beneath all that, there's a man yelling.

In English.

"Quiet!" Jason barks, and races to the far edge of the roof, looking down the street, away from the bay.

It takes him a minute to figure out where the sound is coming from.

Four buildings down, there's an awning that's just skimming the top of the water line. The cloth has already been mostly torn away, but the awning's metal frame is still clinging to the building.

Perched precariously atop one of the metal bars, pressed close against the wall to try to prevent his weight from pulling the whole frame loose, Ray Perry is calling for help.

And just like that, there's something they can do.

"Brock?"

"On it," Bravo Five says immediately.

"Rope in your pack?"

"Affirmative."

In this part of the city, the buildings are all jammed relatively close together, but a couple of the jumps are going to be just far enough to be challenging. They can't afford another fall. Have to get this right the first time.

Before Manila, Clay was the fastest and most acrobatic guy on Bravo. In the aftermath of Spenser's leg injury, that title now probably goes to Brock. As for Jason, age and injury history might be catching up to him some, but he's still a fast mover when he needs to be.

Right now, he needs to be.

"Take care of Sonny," Jason tells Trent, and then he and Brock are off.

Brock makes all the jumps just fine. The last one, the longest, damn near gets Jason. He comes up a little short, slams into the top edge of the building, manages to get a grip on the lip of the roof. Brock skids over in time to grab his wrists and pull him up, and then they haul ass to the corner of the structure where the awning is.

Ray is still there, still holding the same position. He looks up, drenched and shaking, in response to their calls. One of his legs is dangling into the water and it looks like it's taking all his strength to keep himself in place.

"Hang on!" Jason calls down to him, and they drop the rope.

The most gut-wrenchingly terrifying moment is when Ray has to turn loose with one hand to clip the rope onto his vest. Jason holds his breath until the clip is in place and he knows they'd at least have a chance to pull Ray up even if he did lose his grip on the awning frame.

When they get him safely up to roof level, Jason pulls his trembling friend into a fierce hug and tells him, "Do _not_ do that to me again."

Ray coughs, his breathing rough and raspy. "Promise I'll try not to." He winces and pulls back a little.

"You hurt?" Jason asks him.

Ray grimaces. "Little banged up. Might have a cracked rib. And I swallowed some water, so I've probably got the plague now."

Jason's responding laugh hovers on the edge of hysterical. He turns loose of Ray so Brock can come in for a careful hug of his own.

In Ray's current condition, exhausted and coughing and banged up, they're not gonna be able to get him across to the rooftop where Trent is hanging out with Sonny. Not until the water recedes. For the time being, there's really nothing they can do but wait - and hope that an aftershock doesn't take down either of the buildings they're currently perched atop.

Still shaking a little from the adrenaline dump, Jason leads his 2IC to what looks like the safest spot on the roof and helps him ease down to a sitting position. Ray is covered in scrapes and minor lacerations, which, combined with his submersion in filthy water, isn't great. They'll need to clean and treat those ASAP to try to prevent infection.

Brock volunteers to go get supplies from Trent's med bag. Having seen the ease with which Bravo Five handled the jumps, Jason nods permission.

While they wait for Brock to return, Jason pulls Ray up against his shoulder, rests his chin atop his friend's curly hair, closes his eyes, and just lets himself breathe.


	5. Chapter 5

Despite one of the girls clearly having some sort of foot or ankle injury, they move faster than Clay expected, making it inside the garage before the wave hits. He ends up meeting them on the steps right above the first floor, just before the entire building shudders and water starts boiling up the stairwell.

"Come on, come on!" Adrenaline overtaking the pain and exhaustion, Clay races down the last few steps, takes over supporting the injured girl, and gives the other one a light push forward to encourage her to go up ahead of them, as fast as she can.

The injured girl is petite and barely seems to weigh anything, especially not compared to Blackburn's heavy ass. Clay hauls her up a few more steps before the water hits them in the back of the legs.

The girl goes down hard with a startled shriek. Clay slams against the railing, loses his grip on her, lunges in time to get a hold of the back collar of her jacket before she disappears. The current rips at them; Clay braces against the railing, gets his feet under him, and drags the girl up the stairs ahead of the rising wave.

At the second floor, where they catch up with the uninjured girl, Clay glances back down the stairwell to see the water churning and frothing in place. Doesn't look like it's coming up any more. They should be good here.

The girl he pulled from the water is soaked head to toe, shaking in terror, wincing as she reaches for her ankle. As her friend pulls her into her lap and fusses over her, Clay sits down hard on the step next to them and joins in with the shivering.

Based on the absence of hypoxia or collapse or, you know, death, he's pretty sure the smoke he briefly inhaled didn't affect his respiratory system nearly as badly as it could have, but it's had enough of an impact that he currently feels a newfound sympathy for anyone with asthma. Between the headache and the shortness of breath and the strident pain from the burned arm he still refuses to look at, he really isn't feeling like going anywhere for a while.

One small consolation is that at least he's only wet from the mid-thigh down, not soaked head to toe like the poor girl. He's pretty sure submerging open burns in that filthy seawater would have been a great way to take a quick trip to sepsisville.

A gentle hand on Clay's shoulder makes him flinch, and he realizes the uninjured girl has been trying to talk to him. His blank expression must give away the fact that he doesn't understand her, so she goes to an English word nearly everyone knows: "Okay?"

He nods. "Okay."

They need to head up to the third floor so the doctor can look at the other girl's ankle, and also probably at Clay's burns. He makes it to his feet and moves to help up the injured girl, but her friend takes over before he can, waving him off with a meaningful glance at his arm.

By the time they make it up the next flight of stairs and emerge on the third level, the doctor has finished doing what she can for Blackburn and has moved on to other casualties. Eric is pale but conscious, sitting up against a wall and sipping from a bottle of something that looks Gatorade-adjacent and is presumably meant to help replenish the fluids he's lost. Two more bottles of the same beverage are neatly lined up beside him.

In the midst of what must feel to them like the apocalypse, these people have somehow managed to find hydrating drinks for the injured foreigner who doesn't even speak their language.

The nature of Clay's job means that he often gets a front-row seat to the worst humanity has to offer. Sometimes it's easy to forget that there's this, too. People in the rubble, helping. Kindness just for its own sake.

Blackburn relaxes a bit when he sees Clay. He's still pale and visibly in pain, but someone has washed the dust from his face, which reduces the ghostly appearance from before.

"Good to see you awake," Clay says, easing down beside him. "You okay?"

"Doc says I'm not about to bleed out. The rest will have to wait." Blackburn glances down at his bandage-swathed shoulder and immobilized arm, then back up at Clay. "Worried me a little when I woke up and you weren't here."

Clay fidgets, looks over to the girls who are now getting checked over by the doctor. "They needed help."

"Uh-huh," Blackburn says mildly. For a second Clay worries that they're going to have a repeat of their post-Manila discussion about hero complexes and their tendency to get people killed, but Blackburn lets it go and instead asks, "Doc taken a look at you yet?"

Clay shakes his head. "Wasn't time."

Eric narrows his eyes and gives him a searching, perceptive look. "Your breathing is off, and you're hurting. Think you ought to see the doc."

It's such a characteristically Blackburn way to give an order that Clay can't help but smile a little. "Roger that."

When Clay first got drafted to Bravo, he wasn't sure what to think of Eric. Didn't know what to make of the man's calm demeanor, his understatement and restraint, the way he let the men under his command call him by his first name half the time. Was it an act, designed to lull the rookie into a false sense of security?

Even after Clay figured out it wasn't an act, the mild confusion lingered for a while, because Blackburn just really wasn't what he'd expected from a squadron leader. The man didn't throw his weight around. Rarely raised his voice. Often listened as much as he talked.

Eventually, Clay started to pin down exactly what made Blackburn tick, how he could be an effective leader while still being so laid-back. Part of it was the genuine mutual respect and rapport he fostered with his subordinates, and part of it was Eric's own internal confidence - not the fragile, pasted-on variety that blusters and shouts, but the _real_ kind, quiet and steady and sure. An unshakable sense of what he's good at, what his role is, which things are important enough to make a stand on. It's the sort of confidence that never requires him to tear someone else down to make himself seem bigger, because he already knows who he is.

And, well, once Clay figured that out, he also realized he might have something to learn from it. These days, he's self-aware enough to know that he is sometimes maybe a tiny bit prone to acting obnoxiously arrogant whenever he feels insecure.

Recognizing the command underlying the suggestion, Clay gets up and goes to find the doctor.

She hisses softly through her teeth when he shows her the arm. "That looks painful. You should have come to me sooner."

"It is. And you were busy," he says.

She gives him an unimpressed look and carefully takes his arm, holding it up to the light. "The pain is good," she tells him. "It means the burns are not too deep. First- and second-degree only."

It honestly doesn't look quite as bad as Clay expected, which makes him feel a little sheepish about just how much the pain has been affecting him. The worst of it is the outside of his forearm, which is covered in raw, oozing, open wounds where the top couple layers of skin are just gone. There are some huge blisters running up the side of his elbow (which should make bending his arm fun for a while), and his upper arm to the shoulder is dotted with smaller blisters sprinkled across what looks like a really bad sunburn.

The doctor rinses the burns with what she claims is saline, but Clay is pretty sure must actually be some kind of powerful acid based on the way it feels. Then she slathers on ointment and swathes his arm loosely in gauze. When the torture is over, Clay gathers himself and starts to get up, only to be stopped by her firm grip on his shoulder. "Not yet," she says. "You breathed smoke?"

He stifles a cough. "Yeah, a little."

She gives him a narrow-eyed look, then listens to his lungs. "It could be worse, but you should have some oxygen."

Not a surprising verdict. "Yeah," he agrees, "but I'm guessing I won't be able to get it … here." Dumbfounded, he watches as she comes up with a portable oxygen soft pack. "Where did you get all this stuff?"

"In my car," she says. "I was arriving for my shift when the earthquake struck."

In the chaos, Clay had forgotten that the building they'd chosen to run operations out of was just a couple blocks from the newer of the two hospitals in the city. This parking garage must be for that hospital. Which would explain how well constructed it is.

The doctor looks down, focusing on getting the oxygen going and fitting the mask over Clay's face. Then she sits back and says, "I went to school in America."

Well, that would explain why she's so fluent in English.

"The things you have there, the paramedics and the ambulances, we do not really have that here. When there are accidents, sometimes people die who could have been saved." She glances away. "I got the emergency supplies to carry with me. I told myself that I would never be unprepared. I would always be ready to help." When she looks back up at him, there are tears in her eyes. "I was not prepared for this."

Clay lifts the mask off to tell her, "You probably saved my friend's life, and you've helped me and a lot of others. _Nobody_ is ready for a disaster like this, but you've made a difference. People are alive because of you."

She nods, takes a deep breath, and reverts to doctor mode. "Put that back on."

Clay grins at her. "Yes ma'am."

He has just finished settling the mask back into place when the aftershock starts.


	6. Chapter 6

Note: I apologize for the delay. I've been having some chronic pain issues, and also my motivation to write got very suddenly sucked into a black hole. I'm determined to finish this story, though. Should probably be another couple chapters to come after this one.

* * *

Jason braces himself as the building starts to rattle and jolt. He wraps his arms tight around Ray. Whatever happens this time, it will happen to both of them.

And then he remembers that Brock was on his way back with the medical supplies to treat Ray's injuries.

Jason looks up, automatically filtering out the chaos, the deafening noise and disorienting motion. His quick visual sweep finds Bravo Five on the far side of the roof of the nearest building. Reynolds has dropped to his knees, hands down to steady himself.

There's just enough time for Jason to start to feel relieved before part of the roof craters beneath Brock and he disappears.

Jason hears Ray's yell of horror. Doesn't know if he makes a sound of his own. His ears are ringing. There's not a damn thing he can do, not till the quake stops.

After what feels like far too long, it does. As soon as the shaking finally ceases, Ray pushes himself back and tells Jason firmly, "I'm good. Go get our boy."

"Copy that. Stay put. I'll be back for you."

Before moving forward, Jason quickly glances at Sonny and Trent's location to try to determine just how many teammates he's about to have to rescue. Thankfully, Bravo Three and Bravo Four appear to be safe. They obviously saw what happened to Brock - they're staring toward the place where he disappeared, and even from a distance their body language telegraphs shock and horror. Jason signals them to stay put, and then he gets going.

He's well aware that he and Ray are lucky their structure has thus far held up, and that its continued stability is not guaranteed. Even though his every instinct screams at him to get to Brock as quickly as possible, Jason knows better than to rush. Each step forward he takes is careful, shifting his weight gradually rather than all at once.

The roof remains solid beneath his feet, and soon enough he's at the edge, which is where the potential problems truly start to present themselves.

Problem one: When they were coming to pull Ray out of the water, Jason only barely made this jump, and likely wouldn't have without Brock's assistance.

Problem two: He already knows that the roof of the next building is _not_ stable, given that about a third of it just collapsed and took Brock down with it. Jason is not a particularly small human being. Even if he does successfully make the jump, what's going to happen once his weight hits the structure all at once? He could bring the rest of the roof down on Brock, potentially killing his teammate even if he survived the initial fall. Hell, Jason himself could end up dead too, or in need of rescue from their other teammates, who aren't really in any condition to be providing it right now.

Hesitating, he calls Brock's name a few times, but gets no response.

Tension claws at Jason's nerves. There are so many time-sensitive things that could be happening to Bravo Five right now. Blood loss. Crush injuries. A slab of concrete across his chest preventing him from breathing.

If Jason waits, Reynolds could die. If he doesn't wait, they could _both_ end up dying.

He breathes, weighs the odds, makes a decision.

_Whatever you do, just don't come up short._

He doesn't. He clears the edge, lands awkwardly, falls to a knee and freezes in place. The uncollapsed portion of the roof holds. After a few seconds, Jason climbs carefully to his feet and starts moving, sticking close to the outer wall, until he reaches the border of the collapse, the area where Brock should hopefully be.

Looking down brings at least a faint sense of hope and relief, because the structural damage isn't as bad as it could be. The building is three stories high, and while the roof did partially fall in, the collapse appears to have halted on the next floor down - at least for the moment.

Falling a story is bad enough. Falling three stories into the rubble would have been a lot harder to survive.

"Brock? Bravo Five?" Jason kneels at the edge, looking down, scanning the rubble, seeing nothing but a jumble of concrete and dust. Reynolds has to be down there somewhere. Getting a response out of him would certainly help with figuring out what to do next.

There's a faint, slurred groan, and then Brock calls up shakily, "Jace?"

Jason's exhale of relief is sharp and immediate. "Yeah, I'm here. What's your condition? Do I need to come down?"

"No," Brock responds, but his voice trails off in a way Jason doesn't like.

"Hey. Talk to me. Can you move? Are you trapped? Anything broken?"

"Uh…" Reynolds seems to be having trouble figuring out which question to answer. There's faint clattering, then a cough.

A new concern occurs to Jason, its urgency overtaking the other questions. "Where you're at, does it feel stable right now? Don't move too much if it doesn't. Last thing we need is you falling farther than you already did."

"No, I think it's okay. Feels stable." More clattering, and then Jason finally spots Brock, pushing aside small chunks of concrete so he can lift himself up to his knees. Brushing dust and fine rubble out of his curly hair, Bravo Five looks up. "I'm good, boss. Can you pull me up?"

Jason watches as Reynolds gets to his feet. He's moving a little stiffly and shakily, but there's nothing that really screams 'serious injury,' so Jason tells him, "Affirmative. Sending down the rope."

As soon as Brock is out of the hole, Jason gives him a quick check over. He's covered in bruises and abrasions, there's a gash on the side of his head that's bleeding into his curly hair, and his wince when he tries to stand indicates that he probably at least sprained his ankle. Might have a concussion, too, judging by the hazy gaze and mild confusion.

Banged up and hurting, but alive, breathing, and as safe as any of them are right now. Jason pulls him into a hug.

It's the second time today that he hasn't been able to keep himself from fiercely hugging one of his guys out of sheer relief. At this rate, he'll probably end up having to hug Spenser too once they're all finally reunited, and the problem with Spenser is that it gets to be a habit with him. Hug him a few times and he starts to expect it, and then you get the sad puppy eyes every time you _don't_ hug him after some sort of emotional moment, and it's all just very inconvenient for team leaders who want to maintain a little dignity and distance.

For that to even become a problem, though, they have to find Clay first, and that's gonna take a while. Won't be possible until the water at least mostly recedes, and Jason, not being a tsunami expert, isn't sure how long that will take. He guesses it depends on a lot of factors: topography, drainage, the height of the wave itself. Whatever the case, they're stuck here for now.

Despite Ray still being within shouting distance, Jason doesn't like leaving him on that rooftop alone, not after they already almost lost him once today. He doesn't much like staying here, either, on a building that's already partially collapsed, with the ever-present threat of further aftershocks looming.

Doesn't like not knowing where Clay is, if he's safe or even alive. Doesn't like not having any way to contact Blackburn.

Trying to clear his mind of everything he can't control right now, Jason settles down to wait out the water.

* * *

Additional note: Filming has started on SEAL Team season 3. It's been fun watching all the cast members' Instagram stories. Max Thieriot apparently had to have surgery to remove a piece of wood from his leg (I bet there's a story behind that) and is now on crutches, which is a strange and unfortunate coincidence given his character's latest storyline. Hopefully he'll be back on his feet soon.


	7. Chapter 7

When the parking garage starts to shudder, Clay's first thought is Blackburn.

Last time, he didn't manage to shield the commander, and Eric nearly died as a result. Every instinct tells Clay he needs to protect the man this time. Make sure any damage falls on him instead.

Clay manages to get the oxygen mask off and make it to his feet, but that's as far as he gets before the powerful aftershock sets him right back down on his ass. Running anywhere is very much out of the question right now, and Blackburn is too far away to crawl to.

Before Clay has a chance to think about it further, there's a cracking sound from above, and small pieces of concrete start raining down.

The doctor screams, trying to shield her head. Clay reverses direction and flings himself over her petite form, yelling in pain when his gauze-wrapped arm slams against the floor. Something hits him hard in the right shoulder, which is almost helpful because it numbs his arm just a bit.

Everything hurts and he can barely tell up from down, but he holds his position. If this is the only person he has a chance to save, well, he'll save her or die trying.

There's one more level of parking garage above them. Clay braces himself for the potential buckle, for it to collapse and rain down concrete and steel and dozens of parked vehicles.

It seems about right that he would survive an earthquake and then a fire and _then_ a tsunami, only to die because God dropped a truck on his head.

But the shaking stops, and the structure holds.

When he's sure it's really over, Clay rolls himself off the doctor, who for a moment remains frozen in a ball with her arms over her head before slowly starting to uncurl and look around.

Lying on his back, trying to breathe through the pain in his arm, Clay stares up at the damage. The concrete overhead is run through with cracks and and is deeply pitted where small chunks of material have fallen away.

One more aftershock, and they're probably all dead. They're fortunate that this one didn't kill them.

While the doctor gets herself together and goes to check on the survivors, Clay heads over to Blackburn. Eric is still in the same spot and doesn't appear to have been hit by any falling debris, but he's terribly pale, eyes closed. Only the white-knuckled fist he's making with his good hand tells Clay he's conscious. And hurting. A lot.

"Hey," Clay says softly.

Blackburn peels his eyes open a sliver. Barely moving his lips, he says, "Well, that sucked."

Clay laughs quietly. "Kinda did, didn't it?"

The jarring didn't do Eric any favors. There's fresh blood visible on the gauze covering his shoulder. The rate of blood loss seems pretty slow, but the fact that it's happening at all still makes Clay feel antsy and uneasy. The longer it takes to get Blackburn to a hospital where he can get real care, like transfusions and surgery to fix whatever damage lies under those bandages, the more time there is for something to go wrong.

Like, for example, an infection. There's no way that rebar that went clear through his shoulder was anything approaching clean, and Eric's face is shiny with sweat. Clay would like for that to just be from the pain and the warm environment, but he doubts they're that lucky.

While Clay was evaluating Blackburn, the commander was apparently doing the same to him. Now he asks quietly, "Arm?"

Clay glances down. The gauze the doctor applied is still more or less in place but is now deeply embedded in the open burns, and judging by the amount of yellowish, bloody fluid soaking it higher up, some of the bigger blisters around his elbow must have popped.

Basically, removing those bandages is going to be unbearable, and Clay sincerely hopes he has access to morphine by the time it has to happen. Or is unconscious. Unconsciousness might be good.

"It's okay," he assures Blackburn. "I'm okay."

Eric pretty much ignores that, his forehead creased with pain and probably also more than a hint of worry. "Oxygen?"

He must have been watching, just before the tremor, when the doctor hooked Clay up to the oxygen. In the worry and chaos afterward, Clay had forgotten about it.

With an internal groan, he pushes himself up and stumbles over to retrieve the portable oxygen pack. Sitting back down next to Blackburn, he fits the mask over his mouth and then asks in a muffled voice, "Good?"

"Yeah," Eric says on a relieved sigh. His head falls back and his eyes slide closed.

They wait. After a while, Clay decides he's had enough oxygen for now and turns it off to conserve it. He must fall asleep at some point, because when he wakes up, confused and groggy, it's twilight and the parking garage has somehow acquired more uniformed medical personnel.

The doctor, whose name is apparently Dita, comes to kneel at Clay's side. She looks exhausted but deeply relieved. "The water is down. We can go to the hospital now."

Clay nods. Despite the nap, he's unbearably exhausted; feels like he's moving in slow motion when he turns to check on Eric. Blackburn is conscious but looks confused, and he's definitely running a fever now. Clay can feel the heat through Eric's shirt sleeve when he pats his arm.

After a natural disaster of this magnitude, the hospital is going to be overwhelmed and in absolute chaos, but it's still currently the best shot they've got at getting real treatment. Hopefully their connection with Dr. Dita will help them get access to the care they require - especially Blackburn, who needs powerful antibiotics yesterday, and probably also surgery to clean out the debris that is more than likely trapped inside his shoulder. Without it, he could go septic terrifyingly quickly.

That can't happen. Clay won't let it.

Under Dr. Dita's instruction, the medical personnel get Blackburn onto a stretcher. Clay, carrying the portable oxygen, walks under his own power, increasingly dizzy and exhausted, shocked by the sheer amount of effort it takes just to pick his feet up.

The streets are filthy and littered with debris and, in places, bodies. As the light dims, Clay stumbles often, but doesn't ask for or expect help. He knows he's one of the lucky ones in this scenario.

The hospital building appears to have surprisingly good structural integrity still, which means it must have been designed to withstand earthquakes. The ground floor is a disaster from the flooding, so triage areas have been set up on the second and third floors. Clay is quickly judged stable and gets shuffled off into a low-priority area. He only agrees to go there because Dita fiercely promises him that she'll make sure Eric is taken care of.

Clay deeply, desperately wants to go with Blackburn. Wants to stay at his side, make sure he receives the treatment he needs. Despite Dr. Dita's kindness and apparent competence, he can hardly bear to trust Eric's life to someone he's known for less than a day, especially in an environment this chaotic.

It's that very environment that makes it clear that sticking with Blackburn really isn't an option right now. Clay would only be in the way, likely delaying Eric's treatment, and the last thing the hospital staff need right now is anyone else getting in their way.

In the press of terrified, miserable humanity, Clay finds himself a corner to claim, where he sits and floats through hazy semiconsciousness. Someone comes to take the oxygen away from him, and while he doesn't speak the language and therefore can't understand the explanation of why, he doesn't argue because he figures other people need it more.

A few hours later, he gets to regretting that decision, because it starts to feel like part of that tsunami must have washed into his chest and is now sloshing around when he tries to breathe. He leans his head back against the wall and focuses. Sniper breathing. In. Out.

A while later, he opens his eyes. There are white walls and a lot of people. He thinks he's in a hospital.

He closes his eyes.

There's something wrong. Something important. Someone he was supposed to be taking care of; a gnawing, wrenching sense that he's failed at that.

Swanny? Was Swanny here?

That doesn't seem right, but he can't remember...

There are voices but they aren't speaking a language Clay understands. That tells him where he _isn't_ but not where he is.

There was water, wasn't there? He feels like he drowned. Like he's drowning.

_Blackburn._ Eric. Eric was hurt. Clay was supposed to protect him. Needs to find him.

He tries to stand, but his legs won't hold him up. His chest hurts, and his arm. He looks around for help, but there's just a blur of frightened faces, people crammed together on the floor, a solid sea of humanity he couldn't cross even if he had the strength.

_Help me,_ he thinks, but the words don't come out, because he knows they wouldn't do any good. No one here is going to be able to help him.

Where is his team? Still in the Philippines? He wishes they were here.

Clay could rest if he just knew Blackburn was all right. That's all he needs to know.

He closes his eyes. _Sniper breathing. _But no one ever taught him how to breathe underwater.

Time warps and fractures. Eventually, someone starts patting his cheek, yelling at him. When Clay opens his eyes, Jason's filthy, worried face swims into view. He's saying something, but Clay's ears must be full of water too, because the sounds are all muffled.

"Hey, boss," he mumbles.

Jason is here. Jason will find Blackburn. Will take care of him.

Clay goes to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

The water eventually recedes. Maybe half an hour before dark, the members of Bravo (minus their missing youngest) find their way down from their respective buildings and meet in the debris-littered street.

Now that the godawful waiting is _finally_ over, the most pressing question is where they should go first. Sonny, of course, wants to head straight to Clay and Blackburn's last known location, but Ray points out it's highly unlikely that they'll still be there.

As it turns out, it's Brock who makes the decision for them.

He's been mostly quiet, but it's not like that's particularly out of character. They're standing in the street trying to decide where to go when Brock finally speaks up.

Quietly but clearly, he says, "I think something might be wrong."

All other conversation instantaneously stops. Trent materializes at Brock's side and asks, "Symptoms?"

"Pain," he says, again in that dull, emotionless voice they all know he uses when he's either really hurting or really upset. He indicates his upper left abdomen to clarify the location, then adds, "Dizzy. Cold."

This environment may be many things. Cold is definitely not one of them.

When Trent very gently presses on the painful spot, Brock sways. Jason has to grab his arm to keep him from going down.

"Worse with pressure?" Trent asks.

Brock breathes for a minute before giving a clipped, "Yep."

The medic hesitates, exchanging glances with Jason in the fading light. "Does your shoulder hurt too?"

"Yeah."

"Which one?"

"Left," he mumbles. "Figured I bruised it."

Jason does not like Trent's expression. At all. "What are you thinking?"

"Think he might have ruptured his spleen," Sawyer says quietly.

Shit.

If it's not too severe, just a small tear with slow bleeding, they might have some time. But that's hell of a big 'if' to trust Bravo Five's life to.

The nearest hospital Jason knows of is the newish one just a few blocks from Eric and Clay's last known location, so that's where his team will go. If any of their guys escaped the ops building, that's likely where they'll be anyway - whether to give or receive assistance.

It pretty quickly becomes clear that Brock isn't going to be able to walk far, so they find a waterlogged blanket or curtain that they can use to carry him. Jason takes one end of it and Trent the other; Sonny and Ray are both banged up and need to be able to focus on keeping themselves upright.

Once darkness falls, the devastated, broken city feels even more eerie and haunted. The streets are mostly empty, with most survivors likely still congregated in high places. Occasionally, faint wailing will float on the air; otherwise, the world is unbearably still and silent.

As expected, the hospital is the opposite of that: in absolute chaos, clearly understaffed and overwhelmed, and it's hellishly hard to find anybody who speaks even a little English. Some of the doctors likely do, but the nurses and aides rarely know more than a few phrases.

They haul Brock to one of the triage stations, hoping desperately that someone will recognize how serious his condition is and be able to arrange treatment. Trent, by all appearances, damn near has a breakdown over the fact that he _knows_ what is wrong with his best friend, but can't communicate that to anyone who is actually equipped to help.

There's a lot of rapid-fire conversation among the exhausted, harried medical staff. After checking Brock's vitals, they seem to come to an agreement, get him onto a gurney, and start to haul him off into one of the areas reserved for more serious casualties.

Jason opens his mouth to tell Trent to stay with Bravo Five. Sawyer beats him to it, announcing, "I'm going with him. Maybe there'll be a doctor I can talk to." Without waiting for a response from his team leader, Trent, loudly explaining to anyone who might be able to understand that he's a medic and can help, disappears behind the same doors they took Brock through.

Within seconds, a very impatient nurse has green-tagged Jason, Ray and Sonny and shoved them in the direction of a low-priority waiting area.

A quick scan of the area reveals no incongruously light hair standing out amongst the sea of humanity. Jason glances at Sonny and Ray, who are both obviously hurting and exhausted and look like they could really use a rest.

"Let's keep looking," Sonny says. Ray nods in decisive agreement.

The next green-tag area contains a few huddled-together white people, but they're unfamiliar. Probably tourists.

They keep moving. The overwhelmed, overcrowded hospital has packed people into damn near every nook and cranny.

Finally, finally, they see it: the familiar head of tousled blond hair that stands out like a fluorescent beacon in this environment.

Clay appears to be alone. No Blackburn. No Bravo support guys, either.

It takes a frustratingly long time to make it across the room, through the terrified, traumatized masses of survivors. Jason calls out, worry spiking when Spenser doesn't respond.

If he's here in a low-priority area, he shouldn't be too badly injured, right? Right?

Jason wants to convince himself of that, but Clay's complete lack of reaction escalates the concern, and the closer they get, the worse things appear. Spenser's skin is grayish, one arm is almost completely swathed in a filthy bandage, and his breathing sounds bad. Urgently bad.

"Clay? Clay!" Jason pats the kid's face, getting no response. Jesus. He wishes Trent were here.

"Jace?" Sonny's voice is shaky. "He gonna be okay?"

Jason shakes his head. "I don't know. Clay! Come on!"

When Spenser finally blinks awake, he looks confused as hell. "Hey, boss," he slurs, and then immediately passes back out. It's even harder to bring him around a second time, requiring a vicious shoulder pinch that draws a slurred, petulant protest.

"What are we thinking? Secondary drowning?" Ray's voice is tight with worry.

Jason's eyes light on the dirty gauze wrapped around Clay's arm. "Spenser, what happened to the arm? Clay! What's wrong with your arm?"

Head wobbly and eyes glazed, Spenser looks down at the bandages. "Uh," he says. "Burned it."

"Where in the hell did he manage to find a fire in a _tsunami?"_ Sonny asks in bewilderment.

Jason exhales. "Fire probably came before the tsunami, but it doesn't matter. He's in trouble. Guessing smoke inhalation. Pulmonary edema can take a while to show up afterward. He needs oxygen. And maybe a lot more." Trent would know more, but they don't have Trent right now.

"I _had_ oxygen," Clay says sadly, between shallow, crackling breaths. "They took it away." He squints into the middle distance. "Is ... Swanny here?"

Sonny makes a horrified, strangled sound. "Kid, if there is a light, do not go toward it, okay?"

Clay responds by closing his eyes and drifting off again, which causes Sonny to panic until he realizes Spenser is still breathing.

Jason looks around. No medical staff in sight. He has a feeling getting someone to come here would be damn near impossible right now.

Well, if they can't bring help to Spenser, then they'll just have to take Spenser to help.

Jason scoops up his youngest team member, trying not to jar the kid's arm too much, but apparently isn't successful because Clay groans and blinks his eyes open. "Eric?"

Jason exchanges glances with Ray. "He's not here, Clay. Do you know where he is?"

Spenser gasps in a breath. "Doctor. Took him."

"What doctor?"

"Dita." Clay closes his eyes. "Said she'd ... help. Can ... we ... go home now?"

Jason pats his good arm. "Soon, buddy. We'll go home real soon."

In this mess, he guesses any and all available doctors are gonna be overwhelmed, but he stubbornly hauls the kid through the hospital anyway, asking for Dita. Jason is maybe more surprised than anybody when a nurse actually finds her for him.

The weary doctor looks around at the group of men still wearing the remnants of their gear, and then down to Clay, whom Jason has sat down with and is propping up to make it easier for him to breathe.

The flash of realization that washes over the doctor's face lasts only an instant; then she says, "Well. I did not think he acted like a tourist. I suppose this explains-"

"He's in respiratory distress," Jason interrupts impatiently. "Do you have oxygen for him?"

Some of the exhaustion-induced haze clears from the doctor's face. She hisses quietly through her teeth and moves to kneel at Clay's side. She says, "I thought he was all right. And I left portable oxygen with him."

"Yeah. He said someone took it away."

She swears under her breath, then stands and starts calling out orders. While they're waiting for the gurney to arrive, Jason asks her about Blackburn, revising the name to Eric when she initially looks confused.

"Ah. He is in surgery, for his shoulder. His condition was stable last I knew." The doctor looks down at Spenser, who is unconscious again. "Clay protected me during the shaking," she says. "I will care for him now. I promise."

The gurney arrives, and then Spenser is gone and there's nothing left to do but wait.

* * *

So, I felt better for a few days but then got worse again and am now having a hard time managing my pain, hence why this chapter was written on my phone as a distraction while lying in bed. Prayers or good vibes would be appreciated.


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you all so much for the kind words, prayers and good thoughts. I'm having a really good day so far today, painwise, and will take as many of those as I can get.

* * *

After he's taken away from his team, Clay loses track of things for a while.

Apparently he has gone into respiratory distress, for which he receives oxygen and medication and some other treatments he honestly doesn't care to know much about other than that they're helping him not die. He vaguely remembers Dr. Dita being there at first, talking to him, encouraging him to breathe. Most of the other stuff is lost to the haze - except for when they change the bandages on his arm. There is not enough morphine in the goddamn _world_ to make that not awful or to erase it from his memory.

He vaguely remembers asking about Blackburn, and then immediately asking again because the first response slipped away from him like water.

By the time Clay is anything approaching clear-headed, he, Brock and Eric have all been stabilized enough to get airlifted out to a hospital where they can receive better care. Brock's spleen required some stitches but he got to keep it, which is apparently a good thing for his immune system. Eric underwent surgery to clean out the infection and stop the bleeding, but he'll need more procedures to repair muscle and nerve damage in hopes of preserving full mobility in his shoulder and arm.

Gradually, as Clay's head clears and his lungs start to feel less like they belong to a recent drowning victim, he figures some things out - partly on his own, and partly through conversations with Blackburn.

The other four members of Bravo were deemed healthy enough to be sent back stateside, though by all accounts Trent practically had to be peeled away from Brock.

The bodies of the two support guys who died in the earthquake were able to be recovered; being pinned beneath all that rubble prevented them from getting swept away. As for the rest of Bravo support, they apparently escaped out the back of the building, and their attempts to come back in through the front to search for survivors were thwarted by the fire. By the time Clay made it out with Blackburn, they had long since left for high ground. Clay is glad they survived and tries not to be annoyed that they didn't stick around a little longer.

As for Bravo's intended target, there's been no sign of him. According to Blackburn, Mandy says she intends to keep her feelers out, but she's really hoping the bastard just died in the quake or tsunami, which would save everyone a lot of trouble.

By the end of the first week, Clay, Blackburn and Brock have all recovered enough to get transported back to the States, much to Clay's relief. It's good to see the rest of his team for what feels like the first time since the earthquake; his brief interaction with them in the chaotic hospital barely counts.

Ray grins at him and promises to bring the kids to see him soon. Sonny goes on a rant about what kind of idiot could get burned in a goddamn tsunami, and then he gives Clay a hug so tight that he groans. Trent watches the rise and fall of his chest and tells him to do breathing exercises and asks if he's been assigned a respiratory therapist yet (to which the answer is yes, and she is _relentless_).

As for Jason, he has apparently had some conversations with Blackburn, because he waits until the others are done and then asks, "You hauled your burns and smoke inhalation _away_ from safety when that tsunami was coming in, huh?"

Clay fidgets. "Uh," he says eloquently. "Well, there were these two teenage girls who needed help."

Jason sighs deeply. "Yeah. Always people who need help, right?" The expression that crosses his face looks very much like grief, and Clay suspects he's remembering the people outside the bar in Manila who also needed help, and maybe wondering how long it's going to be before Clay goes to help and doesn't ever come back.

Clay feels guilty for putting that expression there, so he promises with as much sincerity as he can manage, "Jace, I'll be careful. I'll try not to ... do anything stupid."

Jason looks at him for a minute. "You know," he says mildly, "I _have_ met you before."

"I'll try to do _fewer_ stupid things?" Clay suggests hopefully, and Jason laughs at him, and he knows he's forgiven. At least until next time.

They all recover, Brock probably the most quickly. Clay really doesn't enjoy respiratory therapy, but he endures it because he wants to get back to normal lung function and capacity as quickly as possible. The bandage changes are so, so much worse than the breathing exercises; every time the gauze has to be peeled off his burns, Clay regrets ever having had skin or nerve endings in the first place. The day his doctor tells him the burns have healed enough to no longer require bandaging is one of the best days of his life.

Clay knows Blackburn's PT regimen is going to suck, so he drops by sometimes during sessions to be a snarky little shit, because he remembers how much it helped when Swanny did that for him.

Finally, the day comes when Bravo is all back together, ready to go back out into the field and kick some ass. They're getting ready to leave for a mission, and Trent is teasing Brock about the legitimate medical possibility that his spleen injury means he now has many tiny little mutant spleens growing at various places in his body, when Clay notices Sonny's new necklace.

"Nice jewelry," he says, zipping up a pocket on his duffel. "Are those crystals?"

Sonny hurriedly tucks the necklace back inside his shirt and mutters something inaudible, which just proves this is a subject that needs pursuing.

Clay stops packing. "Sonny. What's with the necklace?"

Sonny gives a resigned sigh. "It's … Kairos gave it to me."

Clay raises his eyebrows. "For?"

More inarticulate mumbling, and then Sonny finally admits, "It's s'posed to ward off earthquakes."

Clay chokes on a helpless laugh. He can't figure out which subject to address first. One, the place they're currently headed probably hasn't had an earthquake in at least 500 years, and two ... "Son. You realize he's just fucking with you, right?"

Sonny narrows his eyes. "You know," he says, pointing his toothpick at Clay, "you very well might be right. But I figure it can't _hurt_ to wear it anyhow."

Clay nods solemnly. "You're probably right. Better safe than sorry." He waits a beat until Sonny has started to turn away, then adds, "Also, it makes you look very pretty, Arwen."

Sonny throws socks at his head.

* * *

That's all, folks! As always, thank you for reading.

I have a bunch of possible ideas for upcoming stories, but two in particular that I'm having trouble choosing between, so y'all help me out by telling me which of them you'd prefer I write next.

1) _All the Ashes._ Summary: "After Bravo deploys to Colombia, a brutal on-base attack leaves one of their own in a coma, unable to communicate who targeted him or why. As their brother fights for his life, the rest of the team vows to get justice - no matter what it costs them."

2) _Fear in a Handful of Dust._ Summary: "While recovering from a minor injury, Clay gets assigned to serve as interpreter for Romeo in rural Africa, with Kairos also along as EOD. When shit hits the fan and Spenser gets left behind, it's up to Summer to negotiate an uneasy truce between Bravo and Romeo - at least for long enough to get Clay back home alive."


End file.
